In the damp crush of students on the university bus, David mourned his old raincoat which, if it couldn’t disguise him as one of them, might suggest he was a professor whose wife had taken the car for the day. He didn’t even have a briefcase. How at home they all made themselves, eating their lunches, reading, a couple even trying to take notes as the bus swayed with new speed on Chancellor Boulevard. From the back of the bus came gusts of young male laughter, which did not distract the scholars at their work.

David didn’t seriously regret his lack of a university education, but he did feel out of place as he stepped off the bus at the Faculty Club and walked up through the dead sticks of the winter rose garden. There were already plenty of signs of spring in his own garden. He knew where to look for Christmas roses, snowdrops, early primroses, and everywhere daffodils poked strong green fingernails of leaves through the damp earth. But here on campus with its massed plantings of rhododendrons and roses, the show had not begun.

The winter mist hung so low over the water that only the deep-labouring foghorn would alert a stranger to the fact that there was water, important water, just below the cliffs. Beyond it the invisible north mountains were as remote as spring.

David was early enough to hang up his coat and deposit his hat on the rack in the cloakroom before he went out into the central hall where he could warm himself by the great fire, a luxury he missed in his basement. It was a handsome building, a gift of a wealthy lumberman escaped from eastern Europe and determined to put a civilized face on this raw, young world. When it was first built, some of the faculty were embarrassed by it, used to a Quonsit hut for a lunchroom, but only the most spartan among them failed to adjust to its opulence. By now it was an accepted establishment, even viewed with some nostalgia for those lost days of growing budgets and automatic raises in pay.

David saw Jack come through the main door with another man and thought for an unhappy moment that they might not be lunching alone, but Jack parted from his companion at the bottom of the stairs before he crossed over to greet David.

‘Let’s go into the dining room,’ Jack suggested, ‘It will be quieter there.’

He had already reserved a window table which today could offer no more than an idea of a view. The menu the waiter handed to David had no list of prices; only Jack’s would. David felt indulged. He could have a hot meal and not bother with anything more than a sandwich for supper. Jack signalled the wine waiter.